


A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, and Thou

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 06:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16444685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: For the prompt, "Hawke tries to set up a romantic evening, and it gets interrupted every time until it finally isn't."I'm sorry it took me so long to finish it. :(





	A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, and Thou

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SeigePhoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeigePhoenix/gifts).



"Inquisitor?"

Evelyn makes it through another three lines of the letter she's reading before the voice penetrates. "I'm sorry, what?" she says, blinking as she looks up.

Garrett Hawke smiles back at her from the door of her office, looking unaccountably nervous. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."

When he doesn't go on, she blinks at him again, half her brain still lost in the question of how to answer the letter in her hand. An invitation to the Winter Palace wasn't something she'd ever thought to receive.

"It's all right," she says to Hawke, giving him an encouraging smile. "I'm glad to see you're doing better."

He grimaces, his hand going to his ribs, even though magic and elfroot healed them days ago. They all made it out of the Fade, and for that Evelyn is grateful, but they also came out with a few new scars.

"A lot better," he agrees, dropping his hand from his side with a conscious effort. "And I owe you for that."

She waves that away, vaguely embarrassed. "I could say the same to you. We all owe each other, so let's just call it even. That's what friends do for each other, right? Watch each other's backs?"

His head tilts to the side, his expression going from nervous to intent. "Are we friends, then?"

Taken aback, she finally puts down the letter to give him her full attention. "I thought we were," she says cautiously. "Or at least, on friendly terms."

"I'm glad to hear that," he says, still oddly quiet and intent. Then he clears his throat and looks away, past her shoulder and out the window behind her. "I certainly think of you as a friend. I-"

"Inquisitor!"

Evelyn starts, but Hawke nearly jumps out of his skin as one of Josephine's runners comes pelting through the door, barreling past him with hardly a second glance.

"Inquisitor!" the girl says again, breathless from her run across Skyhold. "Inquisitor, the ambassador says you're needed in the war room!"

With a sigh, Evelyn folds up the invitation to the Winter Palace to take it with her. Josephine will definitely want to see it, whatever other business might need to be taken care of first. "I'm sorry, Hawke," she says, giving him an apologetic smile. "Maybe we can talk some other time?"

"Uh, that was what..." He trails off, then shakes his head. "Of course. Some other time."

He's halfway out the door when he stops and turns back, looking past the impatiently fidgeting runner. "And it's Garrett. Please call me Garrett."

Evelyn smiles, momentarily diverted from whatever new crisis is waiting for her downstairs. She likes Garrett Hawke, has liked him almost from the start, and she's maybe more pleased than she should be to learn that he considers her a friend. If he thinks of her as a friend, then maybe, in time, he might think of her as more than a friend?

She pushes that aside as both unlikely and irrelevant. Garrett Hawke has a lot of friends. He's a friendly sort of person, the kind who gets along with everyone, seemingly without trying. As someone currently attempting to at least not alienate everyone--she's not going to set herself up for failure by hoping for friendship--Evelyn knows very well how difficult that is. Garrett makes it look effortless.

"Garrett," she says, acknowledgement and agreement. "Then please, call me Evelyn."

He beams back at her, and she carries that smile with her to the war room as a shield against the latest disaster.

###

Evelyn doesn't see Garrett again for the rest of the day: she's too busy planning cleanup at Adamant with Cullen and arguing over the invitation to the Winter Palace with Josephine. A ball. At the Winter Palace. With the entire Orlesian Court. Maker save her, Evelyn would rather go back into the Fade. _Naked_.

It takes three days before Josephine, as diplomatically implacable as ever, finally wears her down. Another person and another skill Evelyn envies deeply, that ability to hold her ground without getting angry or impatient or fed up. Which doesn't make it any less frustrating when all that imperturbable, diplomatic will is aimed at getting her to do something she absolutely loathes the thought of doing.

The morning of the fourth day, Evelyn gives in with bad grace, then takes her frustration and her knives down to the practice ring. In her current mood, there's no telling what she might put in her response to any of the dozens of letters needing her attention. If she won't be able to accomplish anything useful in her office, she might as well get to do something she wants for a little while.

To her surprise, the ring is already occupied when she gets there. Garrett and Cullen are circling each other in the center, entertaining soldiers and non-soldiers alike with a demonstration of hand-to-hand fighting that involves surprisingly few clothes. Fereldans. They make Evelyn cold just looking at them.

Or they would, if this particular pair of Fereldans wasn't so nicely warming to watch, and Evelyn clearly isn't the only one who thinks so. More than half of the people currently hanging on the fence are not there to learn how to fight, at least judging by the looks on their faces. As if Evelyn is in any position to throw stones on that one. Especially since she has no compunction about allowing others to make room for the Inquisitor and Herald of Andraste, so that Evelyn Trevelyan can gawk--discreetly--at half-naked men.

Watching Garrett and Cullen does wonders for her bad mood, that's for certain, and by the time the two men break for water, Evelyn hardly wants to stab anyone at all. The letters on her desk seem more like a task that has to be done, rather than a torture that has to be endured. It's part of her job, a job she accepted and doesn't actually hate when it doesn't involve the entire Orlesian court. A little more time in the sunshine, and she'll go back inside to see what Leliana's ravens have brought today.

And if she's standing here anyway, then what's the harm in watching Garrett and Cullen?

Neither man is paying much attention to their audience, both too involved in an animated discussion of the relative merits of a fighter carrying a dagger or a shield in their off hand. It leaves Evelyn free to watch them and appreciate the beautiful day. She wouldn't consider it nearly warm enough to go shirtless, but the sun is bright, and the wind doesn't knife right through her the way it so often does. The voices around her have blurred into a babble of different conversations, all relaxed and unconcerned, broken with the occasional giggle from one of the younger observers.

Evelyn shifts her weight, and something about it must catch Cullen's eye, because he looks up and over at her. "Inquisitor. Is everything all right?"

Garrett turns, and for someone who fights as gracefully as Evelyn knows he can, he looks surprisingly graceless just now, tripping over his own feet. A quick grab for the fence around the ring is the only thing that saves him from going face-down in the dust. His pale skin flushes, and he gives her a smile almost as awkward his stumble.

Stifling a wince of sympathetic embarrassment, she says in answer to Cullen's question, "Everything's fine. It's just too nice to be inside all day, so I thought I'd come down and practice."

Garrett perks up. "Did you want to go a few rounds, then?"

It's not what she came down here for, but... "I'd love to."

About to toss her cloak over the railing, a voice from behind her in the crowd says, "Inquisitor?"

At Evelyn's glance back, the crowd parts to let a battered and dusty--but grinning--Lace Harding through.

"Glad I caught you out here," Harding says, hopping up on the railing beside Evelyn so neither of them has to get a crick in their neck. "Saves me the walk up all those Maker-damned stairs."

Garrett, Cullen, and their audience momentarily forgotten, Evelyn leans forward eagerly. "Did you find it?"

Harding's grin broadens, something Evelyn wouldn't have thought possible. "We _did_. Pretty sure I'll be shaking sand out of my boots for at least another month, but..." She brandishes a map case in triumph. "One ancient temple located, as requested."

Cullen makes a noise and an aborted gesture toward the map case, as if he only barely restrained himself from snatching it out of her hand. He clenches his fist around the hilt of his sword instead and says with reasonable calm, "Good work. Very good work."

Harding tips him a cocky salute. "That's what you pay me for."

"True," he says, smiling faintly. "But I'm afraid we're also paying you for at least one more flight of stairs and a bit more walking, at least as far as the war room."

Harding makes an angry face without any real heat behind it. "I knew I should have snuck this into your office when you weren't looking."

Despite the words, she hops off the railing and heads toward the main hall. It's only when Evelyn turns to follow that she remembers Garrett.

"I'm sorry," she says to him, with real regret. "We'll have to practice some other time."

"Of course," he says. "I'd like that."

Inspiration strikes. "What about dinner?" She's generally left in peace for meals, at least. Maybe she and Garrett will be able to exchange more than three sentences.

"Dinner?" Garrett asks.

He looks so surprised at the suggestion that Evelyn wonders in mild panic if she's tipped her hand and shown more interest in him than she meant. "You can bring Varric," she adds, as if she'd intended that all along.

Cullen has gone on ahead, but Harding is waiting just inside earshot, so Evelyn gives her a nod and a smile. "You should join us."

Harding blinks, then returns the smile with a sincere, if tired, one of her own. "I'd be honored, but all I want to do tonight is fall into bed."

"We'll be in the war room until late, anyway," Evelyn says. It would be easy to accept the demurral, except now she's committed to pretending she wasn't trying to get time alone with Garrett. "Day after next?"

###

And so she finds herself with a table set for four instead of two when, a couple days later, Garrett knocks lightly on the frame of her open door. "Inquisitor?"

Before she can say anything, he corrects himself with a sheepish smile. "Evelyn, I mean."

She smiles back and pushes away from her desk. "Garrett. Please, come in."

Technically, he does come in, but only barely, and he hovers just inside the door looking nervous.

"Can I get you something to drink?" she asks, hoping to put him at ease.

"Ah, no, thank you."

They stare awkwardly at each other, then Garrett shakes himself and smiles again, less sheepishly. "You look nice."

"Thank you," Evelyn says, barely managing not to say, _This old thing?_ or something equally inane. "So do you."

It's not flattery: his hair and beard are neatly trimmed, and he's wearing a blue tunic that complements his eyes beautifully. He seems flustered by the praise, smoothing the front of that tunic with a self-conscious hand. "Thanks."

The ensuing pause is uncomfortable, and it stretches so long that Evelyn finds herself asking, "Is Varric still planning on joining us?"

"Oh, sure," Garrett says. His hand smooths his tunic again. "He just saw someone he needed to talk to, when we were coming through the great hall. He said he wouldn't be long."

Watching him, Evelyn has to fight the urge to smooth her own tunic. "Did you see Harding?"

Garrett turns to frown at the open door, like he's found something unexpected. "She was only a little bit behind me, I thought."

The conversation limps along like that for a while. Evelyn hopes with increasing desperation that Varric or Harding will walk through the door to save both her and Garrett from the agony, but neither one appears.

The quick footsteps that do finally echo in the stairway are too light to belong to anyone except one of Josephine's runners. For the first time, Evelyn is grateful for the young voice calling, "Inquisitor?"

Garrett steps hastily sideways, just as a girl comes pelting into the room, waving a crumpled piece of paper in a tight fist. "Inquisitor! The ambassador said to bring you this!"

She's not even out of breath, Evelyn notes absently, holding out her hand for the paper. "What is it?"

"It just came!" the girl says, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Sister Nightingale brought it down herself!"

As answers go, it's less than helpful, but before Evelyn can unfold the paper to see for herself, she hears another set of feet on the stairs. Slower than the runner's--though that isn't saying much--but still not slow. Too light to be Cullen's, too loud to be Leliana's.

Sure enough, it's Josephine who appears in the doorway, flushed and a little out of breath. "Inquisitor," she says, her gaze jumping straight to the still-folded paper in Evelyn's hand. "It's from the Winter Palace!"

###

Evelyn doesn't see a lot of Garrett after that.

He's still in Skyhold, and they cross paths occasionally, but there's never time for more than a quick smile, or a greeting called out in passing. There's never time for _anything_ that isn't preparation for the ball, for endless briefings on every Orlesian noble who might possibly be in attendance and strategy sessions that cover everything from who will be part of the Inquisition's delegation to what they'll be wearing.

The Fade was definitely the lesser evil.

Even the time they spend in travel isn't free: it's just as full of meetings with her advisors that stretch long into the night as they debate every scrap of intelligence Leliana can gather. Politics has never been Evelyn's forte, nor is it her passion, and she wonders aloud more than once whether anyone would notice if Josephine impersonates her. Since all of her advisors ignore the "joke" every time she makes it, Evelyn assumes the answer is yes.

The Winter Palace is at once beautiful and intimidating, breathtaking even to the daughter of nobility. Nothing in the Free Marches can compare to the opulence that surrounds them from the first moment they enter the palace, to the kind of wealth so casually on display. It's decadent, and more than that, it's self-aware decadence. Someone made the choice to turn every hallway and staircase into a gloating reminder of Orlais's wealth, and Evelyn hates it.

She has a lot more to hate than that soon enough, and by the time she's standing alone on the balcony, she wants nothing more than to be done with the Winter Palace. Failing that, a little time alone will probably be enough to keep her from saying anything truly unforgivable. The only thing worse than having to deal with Orlesian intrigue is going through that trouble and then destroying all the political influence she's just gained because she couldn't keep her temper in check.

Time alone, alas, is not to be: she's barely crossed to the balcony's railing before the door behind her swings open, letting out a burst of sound that make her wince. At the end of her patience, she turns too abruptly, her teeth bared in an expression that tries and fails to impersonate a smile.

"What-" she starts, then stops as she sees who's interrupted her quiet moment.

Garrett gives her a conspiratorial smile and puts a finger to his lips, closing the door with exaggerated care. As if the music isn't more than enough to cover any noise they might make, short of screaming.

Quiet returns to the balcony as the door closes. Into that relative silence, Garrett murmurs, "Good evening, Inquisitor. Hiding from the adoring crowds?"

He's still wearing that conspiratorial smile, which is the only reason Evelyn doesn't snarl. Her sense of humor got left behind somewhere in the servants' quarters, and there's no telling when she'll see it again.

"I decided it would be better for the Inquisition if I didn't stab anyone," she says, trying as best she can to make it sound like a joke. "Or rather, anyone else."

"It does generally ruin the party," Garrett agrees.

Evelyn looks pointedly past him at the dancers spinning around the floor, polished masks glinting in the candlelight. " _Most_ parties."

Garrett smiles as he seats himself on the railing a few feet away from her. "They do seem very determined to look like they're having a good time."

"Orlesians." Evelyn snorts. "Never thought I'd be nostalgic for Marcher politics."

"Kirkwall politics were nasty," Garrett says, nodding, "but that lot in there makes Meredith, Orsino, and Dumar look like children arguing over a sweet."

A reluctant smile tilts the corner of Evelyn's mouth. "Should we send them all to bed without supper, and see if that helps?"

"Probably a bad move, politically speaking," Garrett says, smiling faintly.

"Satisfying, though."

"Most Fereldans would agree. Watch out, you might turn into one of us."

"Won't Cullen be thrilled," Evelyn murmurs, amused despite herself.

Garrett cocks his head, smile fading, gaze intent. "That's important to you?"

"He's the commander of the Inquisition's army," Evelyn points out. "It would be a problem if we couldn't get along."

"But...that's all?"

She studies Garrett and picks her next words carefully, feeling her way in the undercurrents hinted at by his tone and expression. She's never been good with people, and it's possible she's misreading him, but if she's not, maybe she can salvage one bright moment from today.

"Cullen is a good commander," she says at last, "and I'm glad to have him on my side. I consider him a friend, and I hope he considers me one."

Garrett turns toward her, more propped against the railing than sitting on it, now. "I'm glad you have people you can trust." His tone is cautious.

"Cullen is a friend," she repeats. "But that's all. And that's all I want. With him."

For a long time, everything is quiet except for the music in the ballroom, the sound muted by the balcony's glass doors. It's dreamlike, time meaningless until Garrett blinks, and smiles, and steps forward, hand out.

"In that case," he says, eyes locked on hers, "might I have this dance?"

Evelyn feels like she's floating as she lets her hand come to rest on his. "I would be honored."

His hand is warm, rough with sword calluses, and her skin tingles at the contact. When he pulls gently to bring her in close, she goes willingly, her body falling unconsciously into the dance. She's more aware of the fabric of his tunic, wool scratching lightly against her palm, than she is of the music.

"You could have asked me to dance a long time ago," she teases.

"I tried," he says. His hand on her waist presses a little harder, encouraging her to move even closer. "But you're a very popular woman, it turns out, and finding a moment alone with you was quite difficult. I started to think the Maker was laughing at me and my attempts."

Evelyn thinks back over the last weeks and starts to laugh. "It's not usually quite so bad," she says. "And...I can always find ways to make sure we're not disturbed. Now that I know I should."

They're dancing cheek-to-cheek, his face no longer visible, but she can hear the smile in his voice when he says, "Maybe we can even finish a meal together."

"An entire uninterrupted meal," she says, as dryly as she can with her heart beating too fast under her skin. "That would be novel."

His laugh is warm in her ear, far better music than what they're playing in a ballroom. Evelyn rests her cheek on his shoulder and for a little while, forgets about everything but him.


End file.
